Acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte arrived at ODNI headquarters in suburban Virginia a day ahead of schedule last week and immediately asked staff for a list of every employee in the office so he could assess who to fire, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Pulte, who assumed the role on Friday, June 19, then directed staff to compile a list of roughly 300 candidates for dismissal from the National Counterterrorism Center alone, Politico reported.
President Trump named Pulte as acting DNI to replace Tulsi Gabbard, who announced her resignation in May after her husband was diagnosed with bone cancer. Gabbard is set to formally depart June 30.
Trump has separately linked the permanent nomination process to unrelated legislative demands. He canceled the Senate confirmation hearing for Jay Clayton, his permanent DNI pick, last week, telling lawmakers he wants James McDonald first confirmed as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the SAVE America Act passed before he proceeds. The SAVE Act, an election-integrity measure, currently lacks the votes to pass the Senate. McDonald’s nomination has not yet been sent to the chamber.
Sen. Tom Cotton, the Arkansas Republican who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the administration is right to force a reckoning at the office. “President Trump is right: the ODNI has grown far beyond its original mandate. I’ve long advocated for downsizing, if not outright eliminating, this bureaucracy,” Cotton said. “Time to return these officers back to their home agencies to focus on actual intelligence work.”
Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, echoed a need for reform. “I think there’s a significant amount of bureaucracy and there needs to be attention paid to the role ODNI plays,” he said.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence was established by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 in response to intelligence failures that preceded the September 11 attacks. Its mandate was to serve as a coordinating layer over the 18-agency intelligence community. Critics on both sides of the aisle have argued for years that it instead became its own bureaucratic layer, duplicating functions already performed by the CIA, NSA, DIA, and other agencies.
Gabbard moved during her tenure to eliminate three ODNI centers: the National Counterproliferation and Biosecurity Center, the Foreign Malign Influence Center, and the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center, citing overlapping missions with existing agencies.
Pulte’s arrival has prompted pushback on Capitol Hill. Congress declined to reauthorize an existing electronic counterterrorism surveillance program specifically because of his appointment. Rep. Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat and member of the House Intelligence Committee, said Sunday he is concerned about national security under Pulte’s leadership.
“I’m just more worried day-to-day that Americans are at risk because we have someone who’s incompetent at the head of this agency,” Crow told CBS News.
Trump has said he expects Pulte to move to declassify documents related to the 2020 presidential election, a priority the president has sought through multiple administration channels.
